The Sugar's Dissolved Now
by HedgieX
Summary: Other people's lives were delicate and intricate, and filled with roads not taken, thorns laid over the pathways, ready to cut them when they fell. Based on the beautiful scene from an older series eight episode, where Tom tells Nicki "I think the sugar's dissolved now." I know most people ship Lorraine and Nicki now, but I'm still holding out hope for Nicki and Tom.


**I know sugar-gate between Tom and Nicki was quite a long time ago now, but I've just found this unfinished one-shot I wrote about them and I decided I should finish and upload it. It seemed a bit of a waste to just throw it away, given that the sugar scene was so utterly adorable.**

The Sugar's Dissolved Now | Waterloo Road | Tom and Nicki

"I think the sugar's dissolved now," Tom said.

"What?" The skin around her eyes was grey as she raised her head and looked at him. She reminded him of a little girl. "Oh. Yeah."

He wanted to shout at her. He wanted to demand an explanation as to how she could have changed so much, from the dreamy, slightly mischievous woman he'd sat in the staff room discussing Shakespeare sonnets with, to this.

The thing was, he couldn't shout. He looked at the way her lips were pursed slightly as she continued to stir her tea around and around, like she was trying to stop herself from sobbing. What would he do if Nicki cried in front of him?

He had a voice which he reserved for when he was particularly disappointed with someone. He'd only ever trialled this voice before on Josh, because with anybody else – students forgetting their homework, or the man in front of him in Greggs taking the last jam donut – the disappointment was momentary. When you loved someone, it was more than that, it was like something shifted inside of you when they let you down. He supposed that meant he loved Nicki. Well, of course he bloody well did.

"I'm sorry, Tom."

"What for?"

"I was so sure it was Scout."

"I know you were," he said quietly. Her throat constricted as she swallowed. He'd hoped his smile might comfort her, but he suspected it turned out more like a grimace. There wasn't really much to smile about. "You really hurt her, Nicki. She's a bit of a wild child, but that's because she's suffered. She tried so hard to prove herself to you, and every time you just threw it back in her face."

"Do you know where she is? I need to apologise to her."

"She's in my classroom, trying to do the piles of homework you set her."

Nicki nodded. Tom leant across and took the spoon from her hand, laying it down beside the sink. The smell of sweet tea drifted around him, and apples. He didn't know where the apple smell came from; in his experience, the Waterloo Road staff weren't exactly the healthiest bunch. He wanted to take Nicki in his arms and bury his nose in her hair, and not just to find out whether her conditioner was fruit-flavoured.

"I've messed up."

"Well, it's never too late to un-mess up."

"Tom." She didn't say anything else for a moment. "I might be risking sounding like a child here, but will you come with me?"

XxXxX

He didn't know how he'd ended up here, in a little café on the corner of town, sitting at a table with a red-and-white checked tablecloth. He didn't know he'd ended up holding Nicki's hand across the table, her tears dribbling down onto his fingers. A scone spread with jam and cream was abandoned in front of him.

"Oh, Nicki," he said.

"I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"For ruining your evening?" she sniffed, and the candle in the centre of the table flickered, "For l– for letting you down?"

"Not for wetting my fingers, then?"

"That too."

Tom was almost uncomfortably warm in the café; he little heater behind him was blasting out an impressive amount of air which scalded his legs. Nicki was shivering, her fingers trembling in his as he stroked the palm of her hand with his thumb.

She was wearing a knee-length pleated skirt which had risen up her thighs because of the way she'd crossed one leg over the other, and a grey scarf caressing her neck. Her shoes were flat black pumps, and he was almost given the impression of a schoolgirl. There was something very childlike about Nicki, maybe because all he wanted to do was make her pain go away; he'd never felt like that about an adult before, only children.

"You haven't let me down," he said quietly.

He'd been so angry with her for the way she'd treated Scout, and now he was realising that Scout wasn't the only one who was vulnerable, who'd been let down after she'd tried so hard to make life better for herself and for others.

"I have," a tear bounced down onto her own untouched scone, "And I've let Scout down. The more she tried to prove herself, the more I– have you ever been like that, Tom? Have you ever been so hell bent on something that you just fail to see the truth?"

"Of course. I've made mistakes a million times with Josh."

"It's not the same. You've not–"

He waited, but she didn't continue speaking. With her spare hand she raised a napkin to her face and rubbed it hard against her tears, like she hoped the roughness of it would cause her to pull herself together.

The café was empty now. The waitress had disappeared into the back room; presumably she was impatient for them to leave so she could go home. The lights were dim, so that her whole face appeared to be the grey colour that the skin beneath her eyes had been earlier, but he could still see her eyes, glittering beads filled with blue and green and grey, in the candlelight.

The tears kept falling. She scrubbed harder, and he reached across to take the napkin from her; it fell into the candle and crackled as wisps of smoke began to rise up. Both Tom and Nicki leant forwards to blow out the flame, and it went out almost immediately, leaving only a slightly blackened napkin and the smell of birthday cake.

He was so close to her he could smell the apple again, and then she leant forwards and kissed him, her lips soft and dry, her tears damp against his cheeks.

"Nicki," he turned his head away, "We shouldn't."

"Sorry. I'm sorry."

"It's not that I don't want to," he said gently, smearing her tears away with his thumb in the same motion with which he'd stroked her hand moments earlier, "You're upset. I don't want you to do anything you'll regret."

"I wouldn't regret it."

"I think, sometimes, we think something is love when it isn't. Sometimes, other feelings can look a lot like love."

"The school bell's rung, Tom."

"Very funny." _It's not that I don't want to._ There was nothing he wanted more. He didn't want his fears to get in the way of what they might have any more; he didn't want anything to get in the way. But only if it was right for her too. "If you still feel like this in the morning–"

"Remember that run we did for charity last year? Do you remember the fun we had?" she smiled momentarily, and then more tears fell. She didn't seem to be able to stop them. "What went wrong, Tom?"

"I think we're both too tired for philosophy tonight," he said, "Do you want to talk about anything? About what's happened?"

"Not right now. Maybe later."

The waitress peered around the doorframe and then retreated again, perturbed by Nicki's crying. Maybe it would have looked to anyone else like they were boyfriend and girlfriend, Tom telling Nicki that their relationship had reached the end of the line, that he'd found someone else.

Other people's lives were delicate and intricate, and filled with roads not taken, thorns laid over the pathways, ready to cut them when they fell. He remembered that poem from his own education; _I took the road less travelled by, And that has made all the difference._

"You were very brave, apologising to Scout in front of everyone."

"I want to make it up to her."

"And you will. She'll learn to trust you again, I know she will. You just need to let her prove herself to you."

"Who in their right minds would become a teacher?"

"Well, I don't think either of us are particularly in our right minds."

She smiled weakly again, and his heart suddenly broke for her pain, for whatever she wasn't telling him. "Oh, come here."

She stood up, moving clumsily in her haste. He reached up to hug her and she sat down on his knee; he held her to him like he still did sometimes with Josh, although neither of them ever admitted to it afterwards, and buried his nose in her hair and in her shoulder, and then in her scarf.

"You smell of apples."

"Do I? The shampoo bottle said it was raspberry, but then all fruit smells about the same nowadays, doesn't it?"

"Nowadays? Have the smells of fruits mutated?"

"Mm." She laughed suddenly. "_I think the sugar's dissolved now_."

"It only took you a few hours to see the funny side of that."

"Oh, shut up," she murmured, flailing her fingers in his direction. He caught them and pressed his lips to the back of her hand.

XxXxX

**I'm still holding out a tiny bit of hope for Tom&Nicki, despite the fact that the rest of the fandom appears to have changed allegiances to shipping Lorraine&Nicki instead.**

**The poem is **_**The Road Not Taken**_** by Robert Frost, I love how poetry can hold memories. Anyway, I'll stop blabbering, please review! x**


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